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Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#11

Post by electric_mayhem »

xeromal wrote: post #7
strifey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are typically just simple pieces of plastic to fill a hole. There is clearly no function to them. What seems weird is they went through the effort of installing a nonfunctional yet functional-looking piece.

Cars do that pretty often. EVs for instance often have fake grilles for no reason.

My guess would be so that eagle-eyed ocd tesla owners don’t freak out over seeming to have fewer cameras in their car than their buddy’s previous model year version.

I’m certain there’s be posts complaining about being short a camera without any understanding of hw4 being better despite having a smaller quantity of cameras.

Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#12

Post by recursive »

xeromal wrote: post #7
strifey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are typically just simple pieces of plastic to fill a hole. There is clearly no function to them. What seems weird is they went through the effort of installing a nonfunctional yet functional-looking piece.

Cars do that pretty often. EVs for instance often have fake grilles for no reason.

Many cars have fake exhaust tips. I see them all the time. Search for "fake exhaust". It looks like most of them come from the factory.

Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#13

Post by strifey »

xeromal wrote: post #7
strifey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are typically just simple pieces of plastic to fill a hole. There is clearly no function to them. What seems weird is they went through the effort of installing a nonfunctional yet functional-looking piece.

Cars do that pretty often. EVs for instance often have fake grilles for no reason.

A car grille is a much more prominent and expected visual feature of a car, though. This small, tucked away yet realistic-looking camera doesn't seem to fit the same reasoning for me. That said, it wouldn't be entirely surprising if some designer "couldn't stop noticing it missing" or something along those lines.

Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#14

Post by xeromal »

electric_mayhem wrote: post #11
xeromal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars do that pretty often. EVs for instance often have fake grilles for no reason.

My guess would be so that eagle-eyed ocd tesla owners don’t freak out over seeming to have fewer cameras in their car than their buddy’s previous model year version. I’m certain there’s be posts complaining about being short a camera without any understanding of hw4 being better despite having a smaller quantity of cameras.

I bet this is at least part of the reason if not all.

Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#15

Post by pkulak »

strifey wrote: post #6
blakesterz wrote: post #3

My vehicle has a couple "dummy" things on the inside as well. Places for plugs and switches and things that are only on other models. Maybe it's something like that? It'll be an upgrade option or on a different model? It's probably much cheaper to make the housing thing to be used in a wider range of models.

Those are typically just simple pieces of plastic to fill a hole. There is clearly no function to them. What seems weird is they went through the effort of installing a nonfunctional yet functional-looking piece.

The article says they did it because the camera needs to be on one side or the other depending on the drive side of the country. This must have been easier than building two different enclosures.

Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#16

Post by lfuller »

pkulak wrote: post #15
strifey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are typically just simple pieces of plastic to fill a hole. There is clearly no function to them. What seems weird is they went through the effort of installing a nonfunctional yet functional-looking piece.

The article says they did it because the camera needs to be on one side or the other depending on the drive side of the country. This must have been easier than building two different enclosures.

That was a highlighted top comment speculating on why it's there.

Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#17

Post by csteubs »

strifey wrote: post #6
blakesterz wrote: post #3

My vehicle has a couple "dummy" things on the inside as well. Places for plugs and switches and things that are only on other models. Maybe it's something like that? It'll be an upgrade option or on a different model? It's probably much cheaper to make the housing thing to be used in a wider range of models.

Those are typically just simple pieces of plastic to fill a hole. There is clearly no function to them. What seems weird is they went through the effort of installing a nonfunctional yet functional-looking piece.

Weird indeed. Blank buttons in base model vehicles are at least user-accessible as opposed to a camera module behind glass. Any time I add an accessory, the button fascia gets popped out and a rocker switch put in. Perhaps the dummy camera is the same form factor of a component that Tesla knows it will include in future releases and is just carving out room for a possible upgrade years from now?

Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#19

Post by daveguy »

dmonitor wrote: post #5
blakesterz wrote: post #3

My vehicle has a couple "dummy" things on the inside as well. Places for plugs and switches and things that are only on other models. Maybe it's something like that? It'll be an upgrade option or on a different model? It's probably much cheaper to make the housing thing to be used in a wider range of models.

“tesla reuses old plastic molds for new car models” is a much less interesting title, though.

Except it's not just the mold. They put a fake realistic camera in where the placeholder is. If it was to "fill space in a generic mold" they could have used a plastic cover. Instead they chose a realistic looking mock camera. I wonder why.

Re: Tesla puts a ‘dummy’ camera in its new vehicles

#20

Post by toast0 »

xeromal wrote: post #7
strifey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are typically just simple pieces of plastic to fill a hole. There is clearly no function to them. What seems weird is they went through the effort of installing a nonfunctional yet functional-looking piece.

Cars do that pretty often. EVs for instance often have fake grilles for no reason.

This isn't just EVs, it's currently fashionable on ICEs to block the traditionally placed grille, and then add airflow underneath.
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